BC woman left shackled in “inhumane conditions” in U.S. detention centres

Jasmine Mooney has arrived back home after she was detained by ICE earlier this month while applying for a work permit at the U.S./Mexico border.

When her permit was denied two weeks ago, she began searching for flights home. But she was then taken and transferred to a detention centre in Arizona.

“They said ‘you’re not in trouble. You’re not a criminal. You didn’t do anything wrong’… and then next thing you know I was taken,” Mooney old 1130 NewsRadio.

Mooney said she was kept in a cell with 30 other women where she was forced to sleep on concrete without a blanket.

“No one deserves to go through that,” she said.

Len Saunders, an immigration lawyer in Blaine Washington, told 1130 NewsRadio the whole ordeal was unnecessary.

“The simply could have sent her on the next plane home,” he said. “Their keeping her in custody for weeks and weeks and weeks was a complete waste of government resources.”

But, he said it is symbolic of how things have changed in the U.S.

“It’s interesting how hypocritical the Americans are on cases with their nationals overseas in Russia being detained and how things can drag on for months and years,” Saunders said.

He said he believes the outcry in the Canadian media helped force the decision to release Mooney.

“The American government hates bad publicity and once word got out in the Canadian media, there were U.S reports of it too,” he continued.

Now Mooney is able to adjust back into her life in Abbotsford, but said she is still having trouble processing the whole ordeal.